Chapter 7 "WE MUST GET AN EARLY START"

Peggy stretched her eyes wide. "Smugglers! You actually saw some smugglers in the desert?"

"Sh! Not so loud," Jo Ann warned, low-voiced. "We think they were smugglers, but of course we can't be absolutely certain."

"So that was what you and Florence were so excited about when you came back to the car out there in the desert. Hurry up and tell me all about it."

"We can't-not here, with all these people around. Wait till we get to the hotel; then we'll tell you everything, won't we, Florence?"

Florence nodded assent.

After a second time around the Plaza without seeing the mystery man, Jo Ann was more disappointed than ever.

When they reached the place where Miss Prudence and Carlitos were sitting, Miss Prudence gestured to them to step from the line and come to her side. "Girls," she began as soon as they walked over, "I think we'd better leave now and go on back to the hotel. You know the trip tomorrow up the mountains to the mine is bound to be a very hard one. We must get an early start in the morning."

On hearing these familiar words, "get an early start," the girls exchanged swift glances but succeeded in keeping sober expressions on their faces.

Peggy protested lightly, "This music is so lovely, I hate to leave it."

"You'll be able to hear it from your room at the hotel-it's so close by," Miss Prudence replied.

"Peggy likes to promenade as well as to hear the music," Florence put in, teasing.

"She'll have other opportunities to promenade, probably."

"Yes," put in Florence. "The mine is not so far away but what we can come back here at least a few times this summer."

Miss Prudence rose from the bench and started toward the hotel, the girls following, but not without several backward glances at the fascinating Plaza and the gay young crowd.

Peggy would not have followed as meekly if it had not been that she was eager to hear Florence's and Jo Ann's tale about the smugglers. Jo Ann, too, would not have been so willing to go if it had not been that the mystery man had disappeared and she now felt that she would not get a chance to tell him about the smugglers.

When they reached the hotel, Florence, who was to be Miss Prudence's roommate, went on with Jo Ann and Peggy to their room, explaining to Miss Prudence that she would come to bed shortly.

As soon as Peggy had closed the door of their room, she ordered, "Tell that tale about the smugglers from beginning to end. I knew something exciting had happened to you back there in the desert, and I don't know why I forgot to ask about it sooner unless it was because I was so interested in getting to the city."

Jo Ann, with Florence's frequent promptings, quickly recounted the details about the hidden car, its contents, and the men's angry conversation.

"Wh-ew, I'm glad I didn't go with you after the water," Peggy exclaimed when they had finished. "I'd have been sure to have shrieked or squealed, and they'd have discovered me. One thing I don't understand, though, is what makes you so certain they were smugglers. The fact that they had baskets and pottery in their car doesn't prove that they were trying to take them across the border without paying duty, does it?"

"No," Jo Ann replied. "Think what a good blind the pottery and baskets would be! It would look as if the men were regular merchants buying Mexican wares for the trade in the States, wouldn't it?"

Peggy nodded.

"Then think how easy it'd be to conceal dope or gold in the jars and vases and baskets. It's dope or gold-or both-they're probably smuggling. The chances are the packages the men complained about not being weighed correctly held one or both of those articles."

"That's so. Those are the things the coast guard said were smuggled most frequently."

"I'm not going to be satisfied till I see my mystery man again," Jo Ann went on earnestly. "I could tell him the exact spot where we'd seen that hidden car, and that might be the very bit of information he needs to be able to catch the men."

"I shouldn't be at all surprised if those men belong to the gang that man's trying to break up. I wish, Jo, you could see that mystery man and tell him all this, but in this big city"-Florence shook her head dubiously-"your chances of seeing him again are small."

Jo Ann's chin took on a determined little tilt. "I'm coming back here as soon as I can and look for him. I believe this main plaza is a good place to look for him, too. It's a sort of central meeting place for everybody."

Florence nodded. "That's true. Everybody naturally gravitates toward the Plaza. It's the very heart of the city."

Long after Florence had left to go to Miss Prudence's room and Peggy was sound asleep, Jo Ann lay wide awake pondering over plans for getting back to the city and for finding the mystery man. She had to leave early tomorrow with the others, as all arrangements had been made for Florence's father and Carlitos's uncle, Mr. Eldridge, to meet them at a small village on the way to the mine.

It was well that they did get an early start the next morning, as the nearer they approached the high mountain range beyond the city, the steeper and more dangerous the road became.

"I think we'll have to leave our car at the village and go the rest of the way to La Esperanza by oxcart or horses," said Peggy. "That's the way Mr. Eldridge said they had to do last summer." She smiled over at Miss Prudence. "Which will you choose, the oxcart or a horse?"

"A horse every time," came back the quick reply. "I love to ride horseback."

"Grand!" approved Jo Ann.

"I'll feel safer-more comfortable, too-on a good horse than in this car." Miss Prudence added whimsically, "I beg your pardon for knocking Jitters that way."

Jo Ann smiled broadly. Miss Prudence was a good scout after all. She could ride horseback and condescended now and then to a bit of slang, such as the word "knocking" just then.

When they neared San Geronimo where they were to meet Dr. Blackwell and Mr. Eldridge, the faces of all five began to glow with anticipation. Florence could hardly wait to see her father, and Carlitos his uncle Mr. Eldridge, who was Miss Prudence's only brother.

As soon as she caught sight of the flat-roofed adobe houses of the village Florence began exulting, "I'll soon see Dad now! He'll be waiting at old Pedro's store."

"We'll hate to give you up," put in Peggy. "We'll miss you so much!"

"It won't be long till I'll be coming over to see you, and then you can come over and visit with me and see our city again."

"So we'll end up in spending the summer together after all," laughed Jo Ann.

Florence nodded so emphatically that Peggy's face brightened again.

In a few more minutes Florence stopped the car in front of the little store, then leaped out and into the arms of a tall, distinguished, gray-haired man, crying, "Daddy! Oh, Daddy! I'm so glad to see you."

Just then a tall thin man and a small black-eyed Mexican boy rode up on horses and leaped off.

At sight of them Carlitos shouted joyfully, "My uncle and Pepito! My Pepito!" He sprang out of the car, ran over and greeted his uncle hastily, then flew over to the grinning little Mexican and threw his arms affectionately about him.

"Who is that child?" Miss Prudence demanded of Jo Ann after they had all exchanged greetings with Mr. Eldridge.

"That's Pepito, his foster brother-the son of the nurse who took care of Carlitos so many years. They love each other like real brothers."

"We-ell, I suppose they should feel that way," Miss Prudence said slowly. "After all, all the peoples of the earth are 'of one blood'-so the Good Book says."

"We believe that in theory but don't always practice it, as Carlitos and Pepito do," put in Mr. Eldridge, secretly amused at his sister's inward struggle to accept this relationship between her nephew and the little Mexican.

"Where're the horses we're to ride?" Peggy asked curiously after looking about on all sides. "Or are we going to ride in that oxcart over there?"

"No, that won't be necessary. I left the horses on up the road about twelve miles," Mr. Eldridge answered. "I've had the road repaired so you can drive the car to the foot of the mountain."

"Why, that's grand!" exclaimed both girls together. "Not that we don't like to ride horseback," added Jo Ann, "but we can travel so much faster in Jitters."

After many words of farewell Florence and her father drove off down the highway which led to the town farther into the interior where they lived.

In a few more minutes, Jo Ann was steering Jitters out of the village and into the road which led to the mine. She had only two other passengers now, as Carlitos insisted on riding on the horse with Pepito.

Just as she was about to pass a little shack on the outskirts of the village, she caught sight of an empty old Ford parked under a mesquite tree just off the road. She stared at it incredulously, then cried out a sharp, "Oh, there's that same car we--" She checked her words suddenly, swerving the car dangerously near an irrigation ditch at the side of the road.

"Mercy!" gasped Miss Prudence from the back seat. "What are you trying to do-turn us over?"

Jo Ann's face flamed with excitement and embarrassment.

"No'm," she said meekly as she drove on slowly. "I-I-really-I don't-see why I did such a silly trick."

Under cover of the car's noise, a little later, Peggy asked curiously, "What on earth made you so excited over seeing that old car?"

Jo Ann's voice was barely audible as she replied, "Because it was the car Florence and I saw hidden up in that gully in the desert. Smugglers."

"O-oh! Are you absolutely sure?"

Jo Ann nodded. "It had the same license number, and the radiator was bumped in exactly the same places."